Why You Should Get Custom-Fit for Golf Clubs in 2025

A new year brings new resolutions.

From a golfer’s point of view, New Year’s resolutions can take any of the following forms:

• “I want to reduce my handicap to single figures.”
• “I want to break par this year.”
• “I want to gain 10 more yards off the tee.”
• “I want to update my golf clubs.”

While we may not be able to fully implement all our objectives from the start of January, the one point we can take action on now is updating our golf clubs.

January is a hotbed of activity as the major manufacturers unveil their new designs and technological advances, which makes it tempting for many of us to consider changing some or all of the clubs in our golf bags.

Before you rush off to your favourite retailer to see all the new clubs coming in, stop and think for a moment.

How will changing your golf equipment actually benefit your game? What are you really looking for in a new golf club or clubs? Do you want more distance or accuracy? Do you need to cover a distance gap at the top or bottom end of your golf bag? Do you need something a little more forgiving?

It’s very easy to make the mistake of buying new golf equipment and find out it doesn’t improve your game - second-hand golf equipment stores on online sites bear testament to this.

So, how can you get the best new clubs of 2025 and ensure they will benefit your game and help you achieve your objectives?

The answer is simple. Get custom-fitted golf equipment.

To prove our point, we’ll look at three areas why fitted golf equipment will benefit your game, which are:

• The Problem With Off-The-Shelf Golf Clubs
• The Benefits Of Custom Club Fitting
• What Happens During A Fitting?
• Club Fitting Near Me? Finding The Right Custom Fitter

The Problem With Off-The-Shelf Golf Clubs

So, why is it not wise to rock up at your local retailer and go daft with your credit card?

The golf clubs that you see glistening on the racks are designed to cover what manufacturers perceive as “the average golfer.” Therein lies the problem. There is no such thing as “the average golfer.”

That’s a bold claim, but let’s explain.

There are two obvious places to look in the first instance:

• We are not all built the same way
• We all have different playing abilities

Everybody who plays golf is not the same height, build, or athletic capability, so why would a standard golf club that you can purchase off-the-shelf work for every golfer?

Tall golfers tend to need longer than standard-length golf clubs, while the opposite can be true for shorter players. Tailoring a club’s length isn’t purely about getting the sole of the club to lie flat on the ground at address. The lie angle must also be altered to ensure the golfer doesn’t have to manipulate their setup at address.

Any time you have to manipulate your setup to accommodate a poorly-fitting golf club, you will experience swing complications and lower your chances of hitting consistent shots.

Moving on to playing abilities, we can demonstrate the disparity in a club like the driver.

A plus-two handicap golfer will have a driver in the bag the same way a sixteen-handicap golfer will have a driver in the bag. However, the similarities end there.

The plus-two handicap golfer will have their driver set up completely differently from the sixteen-handicap golfer. The lower-handicap player is likely to be a consistent ball striker, so they might also prefer a driver head with a smaller profile and a deeper face to help with shot-making and keep the spin rates more in check.

The plus-two handicapper is also likely to favour a shaft that helps promote lower launch and spin while offering high levels of stability to complement the higher clubhead speed generated by this player.

The sixteen-handicap golfer can benefit more from a driver that’s designed to help improve ball speed and consistency across the clubface. A high MOI driver might also help straighten out some crooked shots combined with a shaft that will help generate improved spin numbers to add more carry distance.

We could go right through the bag and point out the additional differences, but the point is that better players have different equipment requirements than higher handicap golfers or beginners.

Custom fitting is the key to accurately assessing those needs, and we’ll examine it more closely shortly.

The Benefits Of Custom Club Fitting

There has been strong growth in the golf club-fitting world in recent years. Golfers are waking up to the idea that if they want to play better golf, one way they can achieve this is by using customised golf clubs built specifically for their game.

Before you begin your Google search for “club fitting near me,” let’s ensure you understand why custom-fitted golf clubs can help you become a better golfer.

The three core areas we focus on are:

• Improved Distance.
• Improved Accuracy.
• Improved Bag Set Up.

Improved Distance

It seems like every golfer is looking for more distance. The idea of being twenty yards past your regular playing partners off the tee with the driver or hitting a seven-iron when the others are hitting five-iron excites any golfer.

Improving how far you hit the golf ball comes down to optimising the spin and launch conditions of your shots.

If we turn to the driver as an example, players with higher clubhead speeds could benefit from drivers designed for low spin, such as the Titleist GT3 or Cobra’s new DS Adapt LS.

Players who generate less clubhead speed and struggle with ball-striking consistency could benefit from a driver where the mass is pulled as far away from the face as possible to create more stability.

Having the correct golf shaft can also add yards to your drives. The fitter will also look to see if extra clubhead speed can be gained by pinpointing the right shaft. Today, shafts aren’t simply about choosing between traditional regular, stiff, or extra-stiff flexes. Getting the correct weight and launch profile in the shaft can help optimise launch and spin numbers on your driver.

Improved Accuracy

Adding distance to your drives doesn’t mean much if you can’t hit fairways. Likewise hitting less club into a par three doesn’t give you an advantage if you end up plugged in a deep bunker at the back of the green.

Marrying accuracy to increased distance gives you more opportunities to attack the course when the chance arises.

When you work with a fitter, they will ask for your feedback on the typical type of misses you experience on the golf course. The fitter will then assess the data they see in the launch monitor to see what the range of the shot dispersion looks like. The added advantage of working with a fitter is that they aren’t just seeing shot dispersion as how far left or right of the target your misses are. The fitter is also looking at how far short or long of the target your shots are going.

We can all probably relate to a shot where we thought we made a decent enough swing, but we slightly miss-hit the shot and watch as the ball comes up well short of the target. Finding that you are long of your intended target isn’t an advantage either, as there can be as much trouble lurking behind your intended target as there is short of it.

Improved Bag Setup

How many times have you faced a situation where you had an awkward yardage and were between clubs? Do you opt for the shorter club and hit it harder to cover the distance, or do you ease up on the longer club in the hope of hitting your target?

The problem with both these shots is that you are likely to compromise the strike, which means you aren’t imparting the right spin on the shot. Not getting the right spin means the ball isn’t likely to fly the way you want it, decreasing the chances of finding the target.

Working with an experienced fitter can help identify inconsistent distance gaps, which can be addressed by adding a club if there is room in the bag or altering the composition of your existing setup to ensure you have a club for every distance you are likely to face during a round.

What Happens During A Fitting?

Golf club fitting experiences can be tailored specifically to your needs. Whether you want to upgrade your golf driver or golf irons, create a more successful golf wedge setup or go through your entire bag, the choice is yours.

Let’s also emphasise the fact that custom fitting is for every level of golfer. An eighteen-handicap golfer can get as much out of a fitting session as a scratch handicap golfer.

We’ll now talk you through your experience if you visit us here at Nine By Nine Golf for a fitting session.

You’ll come into the Nine by Nine Golf state-of-the-art fitting bay, where you’ll spend time with one of our experienced fitters discussing your objectives for the session.

We use the GC Quad launch monitor for the Nine by Nine Golf fitting sessions, which we believe is the most accurate in the marketplace today. The fitter will spend a couple of minutes going through the types of data that GC Quad will produce during the fitting session.

From there, the fitter will have you hit some warm-up shots with your existing clubs to loosen you up. 

As you hit your warm-up shots, the fitter will start focusing on the area you want to work on, and we’ll get some baseline numbers from your existing clubs.

Once we have a good data set, the fitter will discuss the findings from the launch monitor with you. GC Quad produces a lot of its data in a visual format, so you can easily see and understand things like shot dispersion and how you deliver the clubface into the ball.

Interpreting the data allows us to see where improvements can be made, and this is the point at which we can start making some initial recommendations for the club's setup.

This is the fun part: You can now try out different club setups, and we can measure the difference in results.

The objective is to narrow the selection down to a particular club setup. The club setup is based on the data we see from GC Quad, but it is also driven by your feedback on how the club recommendations feel in your swing and at impact.

Ultimately, at the end of the session, you’ll have a clear understanding of what will work best for your game, which is supported by the GC Quad data.

From our perspective, it is important that you fully understand the benefits of the recommendation before you make a financial commitment. Personalised golf clubs will give you confidence that they will perform exactly the way you should expect on the golf course, which is an important consideration given the price of modern golf equipment.

Club Fitting Near Me? Finding The Right Custom Fitter

We alluded earlier to the fact that golf club custom-fitting is becoming increasingly popular, which is great news for golfers.

Custom-fitting facilities are available with some major retailers, golf clubs, mobile units, and independent fitters.

Nine By Nine Golf falls into the latter category. Our independent status means we are free to carry the equipment we believe to be the best for golfers across the spectrum of playing abilities. We can cater to players who are looking for the ultimate in forged blades and low-spin drivers to players who need help gaining consistency, accuracy, and distance.

The Nine by Nine Golf philosophy isn’t confined to the choice of heads we offer. Having the right shaft fitted can help transform your game, so we carry the latest ranges from revered brands such as Fujikura, Mitsubishi Chemical, True Temper, and KBS.

We’ve already discussed the technology Nine by Nine Golf uses in the fitting process, but we place equal importance on the build process of your personalised golf clubs. All golf clubs ordered after a fitting session are built in-house by our technicians, which helps ensure every level of detail is covered from the spec sheet to the final build.

If major changes occur in your golf game and you want another assessment of how your clubs are performing, you can book another session. We will be able to recall the data from your previous session and use that as the benchmark for where your game is now.

If you want to improve your golf game in 2025, a great place to start is having your golf equipment dialled in for exactly what you need. Knowing when you step on the first tee that each club in the bag is built to your desired spec and can perform is crucial to building your confidence.

Seeing drives go longer and straighter, approach shots nestle closer to the flag, or having the right wedge in your bag for a delicate chip shot does wonders for improving your handicap and your desire for more from your golf game. Can there be many more exciting feelings in golf than that?

You can book a golf club fitting session via the Nine By Nine Golf website. The session can be tailored to one particular department of your game, or you can book a full bag assessment if you are ready to make drastic changes!

Via the Nine by Nine Golf website where you can also browse the equipment we stock from manufacturers such as Callaway, Cobra, Mizuno, PXG, Srixon, TaylorMade, and Titleist, to name a few, as well as the custom shaft options from Fujikura, Graphite Design, and Project X.

Keep an eye on the Nine by Nine Golf website in the coming weeks as we detail all the major releases of early 2025.